Lens
|
-- Kiriata Chorral, Traveling Companion
Lens is a construct that takes notes about absolutely everything he comes across, always ready to break the ice with someone new via insistence on an interview. He doesn't participate in combat if at all possible, and people learned to stop asking him where his reality-bending abilities come from a while ago. He provides his traveling party with transportation via teleportation rifts, and cares very little for the laws of space. His view on morality is... questionable.
Table of ContentsBackstoryIf asked about who he is or where he comes from, Lens will almost immediately shift the conversation away. If pressed, he will very bluntly state he has no real way to answer, and shift the conversation away. If cornered, he will firmly reassert that he cannot answer such questions, because there's nothing he can respond with.
His earliest memories are a hazy recollection of fighting the group he's been traveling with after they kicked his ass and then rebooted him afterwards. Bits and pieces come back every so often as he's constantly piecing himself back together internally, which is how he's been rediscovering his own magic and is so fascinated with figuring out the limits of just how far he can deconstruct the rules of reality.
His companions had a rough time bringing him down, and he's not even sure what prompted such hostility from him in the first place, but given how comfortable he is at being kept at arm's length, he's content to provide them with teleportation in exchange for being allowed to observe their adventures and adversaries.
A chance recovery of coordinates during routine maintenance from the group's resident magitech mechanic uncovered the tip of something deeply buried in his mind, pointing to a world unknown to him and carrying with it a mix of deep, mournful longing and burning curiosity. Creating a seam in reality with the ease of of slipping on a jacket, he stepped through, finding himself in Thraelos and, full of excitement, purpose, and for the first time, a sense of anxious anticipation. |
|
Personality
✦ Initial External Layer [First Impression]
Lens will very enthusiastically greet anyone who looks interesting in the slightest with a large, digital smile, and request for an interview; he seems to love getting people to talk about themselves, and does a good job of making sure people feel safe and comfortable, even going so far as to helping them out with anything immediately pressing or weighing on them. If he can't get someone to talk with him, he'll simply leave, disappointed but without a fuss, with the exception of if he felt disrespected by a refusal, at which point, any pretense of niceties are dropped and he has no trouble being the sarcastic, condescending, extremely clever asshole he actually is. His ability to understand others extremely well lends to some pretty sick burns.
✦ Comfortable External Layer [Friends(?)]
People who make the mistake of becoming friends with him will quickly realize he's an incorrigible prankster, and has oddly mature, good advice for someone who wears glasses with the express intent of coming off as less alien. Around people he shares any mutual trust with, he's also more open about how pretentious and catty he can be in regards to his opinions of others, which tends to be either funny or grating, depending on his company. He's very content to keep consistent friend groups, only ever moving on if things become too tense for his liking, or every member of the group becomes uninteresting to him. If either of these happen, though, he'll be gone without a word or single glance back.
✦ The Goo [Internal Processes]
✧ The Core
Lens has an alien coldness behind every interaction with other people and the world around him. A singular drive to uncover, collect, and consume all data possible trips every possible danger flag for anyone perceptive enough to figure him out. His outward friendliness and typically helpful actions seem to serve as a way to both keep people from clocking the danger signs, and to soothe anyone around him who may want to act on how uncomfortable he is to be around, and if that fails, his ability to understand the intents of others on top of his teleportation specialty keeps him far safer than some folks would like. He has no real internal conflict with the idea of using others, as long as it contributes to his continued gathering of information, with any sadness or regret extinguished before he has a chance to properly process the emotions.
His jovial, almost whimsical interactions with others, and moody, volatile emotional states add more layers of discomfort, and he himself isn't quite sure how genuine he is when he manages to be thoughtful, or give good advice, or even when he's irritated. Further, he doesn't even know the reason he's so driven to record everything, only that it's bleakly cold in the deepest part of whatever 'him' is, and he's fairly certain his entire personality is more of a construct than his body is.
✧ Software Glitches
Discussions of any religious nature are prone to cause odd reactions, and his quirky, inquisitive personality starts to become much more rigid and principled, and disrespecting any sort of shrine or holy doodad tends to set him off, very quickly, and very explosively. His core immediately overheats, and people learn one of the only things that ever has Lens seeking out combat. (Afterwards, he will apologize profusely and understatedly, typically with something like, "Ah, so sorry I burned the entire room down. My deepest apologies.")
✧ D̴̢̜͑ȋ̴̧̛̺s̵͖͒̾̃s̵̟̆̏́͜ͅò̴̳l̷͓̦̀̑ų̴̙̣͐t̶̯͒i̵̦̎̀ò̷̳̖̜͘n̵̺̻͕̒̇͘
✦ Mannerism/Traits/Speech
Lens has a very 'proper' and terse speech pattern when speaking with others, not prone to slang and much happier listening to others talk than himself. He tends to be very to-the-point, and surface-level polite around strangers. Things such as "Ah, quite", "Fascinating", and "Unfortunate" make up the majority of his style of response, though slang and more modern phrases pepper his speech the closer he is to being catty and sarcastic. He almost never talks about himself, he'll indulge in discussions of a technical nature, intrigued by magical theory, and particularly teleportation. He has a habit of talking and acting like a stereotypical construct, incapable of understanding conversational nuance and taking everything literally, only to turn around and use sarcasm, leaving some people in that awkward spot of questioning if he's being serious or not. (He finds it quite funny when folks socially flounder like that, and may possibly not be good people).
His physical movements are animated, bordering on hammy, whenever he's in public, though whenever he's actively investigating something or simply compiling thoughts into his journal, he's much more muted and stiff, more like what someone would expect from a construct. His face might seem like a sort of obsidian initially, but no light reflects off of it at all, and he emotes through his movements, voice, and holographic overlays he conjures on his void of a face (and while he has a mouth, he'd prefer if he didn't, doesn't know what the point of it is, and doesn't even need it for verbal speech). A common use of the holographic displays is an ascii smile [ :) ], and when he's being more genuine, he flips it right-side up to look more like a normal face, and if he knows someone else knows he's fucking with them, he just displays it as-is, sideways. He carries a faint scent of ash, wood smoke, old libraries and dusty books with him, and having a human-like warmth to his 'skin' either adds to his unsettlingness or detracts from it, depending on the person.
His inability to skirt the rules of reality within the Bifrost Terminal should carry with it the kind of fear and loss like an Olympic sprinter breaking a leg might experience, but Lens is fascinated and deathly curious instead. His attitude of "I'll try anything once" combined with his tendency to act like he's invincible might even come off as unsettling to the other unfortunate souls trapped in the Bifrost Terminal.
Likes
- Interviewing People
- Learning New Things
- Going New Places
- Cooking (despite lack of human-equivalent taste buds)
- Sketching
- Pranks
- Schadenfreude
- That smug feeling when someone feels stupid because they underestimated you and found out the hard way
Dislikes
- Having to get a new journal
- Finding evidence his memory faltered again
- Sand
Abilities
✦ Physics Need Not Apply
Much like many magics can create energy or matter from nothing, Lens sees just about every rule of physics as suggestions and things to understand only to learn how to break. While he can't quite crack time yet, manipulating energy and space come easily, manifesting as teleportation, conjuration/hammer spaces, and the occasional fireball. Use of magic does wind up taxing on his core, which is a large part of why he prefers avoiding physical conflict, even if it would take less time to actually fight someone. He can combine different aspects of his magic as needed, though the more complex the manipulation and mixing gets, the more likely he is to overheat, and then nobody has a good time.
✧ Categorical Summary and Typical Uses (a.k.a. It's easier to think of this all as spells)
- Electromagnetism - Lightning/Electrical Shenanigans
- Thermodynamics - Creation of Ice and Fire
- Quantum Mechanics - Pranks (You have observed your sandwich; it is now a bee); this is a huge potential rabbit hole of abilities, so, if you're writing Lens and have something in mind not listed here, just say it's quantum magic and go for it.
- Gravity - Convenience, primarily; making himself lighter or an adversary heavier to bail out of a dangerous situation is a common use.
- Motion - Pranks (Friction is a funny thing to mess with); also potentially a devastating thing to adjust in combat situations.
- Photonics - Illusions, Invisibility; this is what he uses to display images on his featureless, Black 3.0 face.
- Relativity - This one is where Lens both falters most and excels at; he's unable to adjust time via gravitational field, but folding space is also his specialty. He primarily uses this for his teleportation and conjuration abilities, but the space within the Bifrost Terminal seems very resistant to manipulation, for some reason. He's still able to pull tools out of his pocket space, but is limited to short hops within the terminal as far as people-moving goes.
✦ Universal Translator
Lens understands intent behind communication almost perfectly; if there is communicative intent (conscious or instinctual) behind any use of language (including body and written language), he's almost assuredly able to understand. This does mean any visual or verbal communication bypasses basic language barriers, but this ability cannot function as proper mind reading, but it might seem like that to others (and he will absolutely play that up if it's to his own benefit). Lens himself doesn't quite understand the nuance of human body language, so relaying information back to others may wind up messy, and concepts such as numbers and specific detail aren't automatically ascertained through this.
A quick summary is that he can tell if someone's lying, but not what the truth is, and he can have a seamless conversation with someone too drunk to form proper syllables.
✦ Durability
He acts like he's invincible, and in some ways, he is. As a construct, he's able to be repaired, and his body is particularly adaptable to replacement parts, even molding the new metal into the 'correct' shape, texture, and material after some time passes. His memory tends to take more of a hit than his body any time he takes catastrophic damage, and his guess is he picked up the journaling habit because of this. For short-term repairs, he tends to use his magic to stitch himself back together, though he can't speed up the healing process. Whatever's powering his ability to heal like a living creature despite being made primarily of metal also, if given enough time (far more than is likely to pass for the entirety of the romp through the haunted portal hub) will reboot his body, though his personality may be altered and his memory reset.
✧ Core
The core on his chest contains what most people think of as a 'soul,' so any damage done to it directly is much harder, possibly even impossible, for Lens to recover from. The material is similar to gemstone with how it catches light and feels to the touch, but it's oddly warm, and pulsates like a heart if, for whatever reason, Lens lets you touch it long enough to notice. He's very protective of it, often not even allowing others to see it, and choosing to keep his thick turtleneck on whenever possible to conceal it. It's nearly as hard as diamond, but also uncomfortably flexible for such a strong, brittle material, and trying to apply sense to it is an exercise in madness.
Overtaxing his core via magic or having to heal physical damage causes it to become broilingly hot and, much like a computer, Lens has trouble functioning if he can't stay cool (he tried cooling himself down with heat manipulation, but it wound up being a net zero, since he was having to use magic for it). He becomes extremely prone to violence, and his normal, goofy-if-condescending personality becomes nothing but indignation and rage, and barely talks. His singular focus turns from "record data" to "eliminate threat," and further use of magic seems to expand his idea of what a "threat" is, and drawing too much when he's already overheated burns him out for hours, or even days, afterwards, provided he survives. He needs help with basic motor functions during this period, and is much less chatty and animated than usual, and magic is completely out of the question.
He has yet to find a material sturdy enough to withstand the cosmic shitstorm of magic he uses when he loses his cool, and is thoroughly nonplussed at how many journals have been incinerated so far.
Skills & Stats
He is both the used car salesman and the used car.
Toolkit
While he doesn't have an actual weapon, his pen, magicked to never run out of ink, is extremely sturdy, and can be used to stab things without risk of the nib snapping off.
Lens can bludgeon things with his journal, though while the cover might be durable, the pages aren't, as any magical reinforcing would also prevent the pages from accepting ink. Because of this, he prefers keeping the journal stashed in his pocket space when it's not in use.
The other odds and ends in his pocket space range from absolutely pointless to potentially useful under specific circumstances, and is more suited for crimes clever shenanigans than any form of combat. As clever as Lens is, it's still hard to actually use a fork as a useful tool in a fight.
✦ General Stats
| ✦ Strengths |
✧ Weaknesses |
|
|
✦ Imperative Strengths
His experience, cleverness, and extreme flexibility with magic make him an extremely slippery opponent, primarily because he'd really prefer if no one saw him as an opponent in the first place. If he does get into an inescapable fight, some flashy initial displays of magic usually scare people away, because they usually don't know how few times he's able to do as such without things getting self-destructively dicey. He's also got the tenacity of a snapping turtle if he sets his sights on figuring something out or accomplishing a task, and having a body that doesn't require rest or food gives him plenty of room to be disturbingly persistent. An additional perk of his biomechanical body is that his vital points aren't where people might think they should be on a humanoid, with blows to his 'brain' only incapacitating him. He can also see fairly well in the dark, and in general has an unusual way of processing sensory information, but for simplicity's sake, it's best to describe it as a one-to-one for standard human senses.
✧ Imperative Weaknesses
While his personality (or lack thereof) may read as dangerous to people, he'd rather make more trouble for himself overall than fight, and has no intent to hurt others (unless his core overheats, in which case, he'll absolutely throw down). In somewhere like the Bifrost Terminal, where his long-range teleportation doesn't work at all, and he's unfamiliar with the terrain, his typical tactics to avoid fights aren't available, and while his body may be tougher and stronger than a human's, he's not nearly as experienced of a combatant as he is a traveler, and any drawn-out conflict will be a complete uphill battle for him. Further, despite his intelligence, ability to get solid reads on people and situations, and general problem-solving skills, he will actively ignore red flags in pursuit of more data (meaning the only time he'll ever back off on something is if he thinks he wouldn't be able to record anything before things went turnways).
✦ Psychological Stats ✦
| Charisma | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧ | Kindness | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ |
| Patience | ✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧ | Intelligence | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ |
| Confidence | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ | Perception | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧ |
| Discipline | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ | Psych Stamina | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧ |
| Courage | ✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧ | Caution | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ |
| Honesty | ✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧** | Loyalty | ✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧ |
| Maturity | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ | Creativity | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧ |
| Cleanliness | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ | Work Ethic | ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ |
✧ Physical Stats ✧
| Physical Strength |
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧
|
Speed |
✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
|
| Magical Strength |
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧
|
Constitution |
✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧
|
| Physical Defense |
✦✦✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧
|
Dexterity |
✦✦✦✦✦✧✧✧✧✧
|
| Magical Defense |
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧✧
|
Stamina |
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✧
|
Usage Notes
I can't think of anything I have as a hard limit with Lens, so, if it somehow ever gets to a point where something feels hinky, I'll slap it down here.
Gallery
Staying on model is for other people! Use this as his main reference for this OCT!
 |
 |
 |
| Very friendly, very normal | Lens is a very serious individual | My PC user icon for years now |
Author's Notes
✦ * While he is an investigative journalist, it's typically self-serving, or for the benefit of whatever maladjusted troupe he's bunking with, and uses his knowledge and connections to manipulate news media.
✦ ** He is, by his own standards, perfectly honest. Whether or not someone needs to know something or the entire truth, however, is extremely subjective and he tends to keep most information to himself. "Honest, not open" kinda guy.
✦ A quick reference for Lens' voice would be Tyl Regor (Warframe).
✦ The green-highlighted stats are negative! It's the exact opposite color of the purple.
No Comments